Re: [tied] The Precise and scientific nature of PIE reconstruction.

On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 21:15:45 +0000, mkelkar2003
<smykelkar@...> wrote:

>Here is how PIE reconstruction works as explained by McWhorter (2001,
>p. 45-46). He gives seven IE cognates for the word "sister-in-law".
>
>Sanskrit: snusha

snus.á:

>Greek: nuós
>
>Old English: snoru Armenian: nu
>
>Russian: snokha Albenian: nuse
>
>Latin: nurus
>
>In Armenian and Albenian the word actually means bride not
>sister-in-law. He explains this phenomenon as an example of semantic
>change.
>
>The PIE word is reconstructed as follows:
>
>1. The word should begin with sn rather than n. The missing s in the
>languages has been lost due to attrition.

*s- is always lost in Greek and Armenian. In Albanian and
Latin sn- > n- is regular.

>2. The first vowel must be u rather than an o. Russian and Old
>English have muted that to an o. The majority rule applies here.

No. It has nothing to do with majority. It has to do with
knowledge about the languages in question. PIE *u gives
Slavic /U/, and that's exactly what we find in OCS snUxa.
The hard yer regularly gives zero or /o/ in Russian.
In Germanic, PIE *u gives /o/ or /u/ (PIE *o gives /a/),
depending on the front or backness of the following vowel.
*snusa: regularly gives *snora:.

> So far the proto word is *snu
>
>3. The next consonant should be an s as shown in Sanskrit, Albenian
>and Greek. S has mutated to a k in Russian and r in Latin and Old
>English. Therefore, *snus

Actually, /s/ gives /s^/ after *u in all the satem
languages, so we have snus^a: in Sanskrit *snus^a: > snUxa
in Slavic.

Intervoalic /s/ gives /z/ and then /r/ independently in
Latin and Germanic.

>4. So far so good. The most twisted part is the ending. The majority
>of the above seven words have a masculine ending except for Sansrkit
>and Russian.

No. Old English has a feminine ending too, and so does
Albanian.

>So the original PIE word MUST be masculine! and end with
>an os rather than an "a" a feminine ending, as it does CORRECTLY in
>Sanskrit and Russian. Therefore PIE *snusos. Science does not work
>by the rule of the majority.

No, science works by logic. Disregarding the Albanian word,
the ending of which is not secure, we have the following
situation:

Sanskrit, Germanic and Slavic point to *snusá: (f.)
Greek and Armenian point to *snusós (m.)
Latin points to *snusú:s (f.)

The Latin ending is analogical after socrus "mother-in-law"
(*swekru:), and the pre-Latin form was doubtlessly *snusós,
as in Greek and Armenian.

We can now choose to reconstruct *snusá: or *snusós. If the
proto-form was *snusá:, we have to explain why this word,
denoting a female person, acquired the normally masculine
ending *-os in Greek, Armenian and Latin. This goes against
all logic. If the proto-form was *snusós, on the other
hand, it is trivial to explain why the ending *-os was
replaced by feminine *-a: in Sanskrit, Germanic and Slavic.

So logic dictates that the original form was *snusós.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...